Literally thousands of computer programs and applications are available for installation on modern-day computing devices, such as the personal computer. Unfortunately, a user of a computing device is typically unable to determine whether an application will impact the health (e.g., the performance or stability) of the computing device before installing the application on the computing device. Because vendor-supplied information detailing the potential impact of an application on the health of a computing device may not be reliable, users may turn to elaborate reviews of applications published on the web by professional reviewers or other users. Such reviews, however, suffer from a number of deficiencies.
For example, a review of an application may not detail the impact the application had on the health of the reviewer's computing device. In addition, even if a reviewer wishes to highlight the perceived impact of an application on the health of the reviewer's computing device, the reviewer may have difficulty determining the precise impact the application had on the computing device's health due to the high number of applications typically installed on computing devices. Moreover, reviewers of an application may not be motivated to post a review of an application unless the reviewer experiences (or at least perceives) problems with the application. As such, reviews of an application may wrongly focus on perceived problems or weaknesses of an application.
In the absence of reliable information, users may not become aware of the negative impact of an application until after the application has been installed. Unfortunately, in some instances the negative effects an application may have on a computing device may not be reversed simply by uninstalling the application.